swarms

of cats! Apollo, Bart, Graphite and Streak spent the holidays together this year and everyone got along surprisingly well. You might notice that the top photo has a swat-in-action but there were no serious disagreements. Feeding time was a bit intense though, lots of meowing and jockeying for good position when the bowls hit the floor.

patiently waiting


swarming


chow!

getting my ducks in a row

or tweed chickens as the case may be...


show them your toes ladies!


its all tweed chickens all the time around here these days... I'm weaving and stuffing up a storm to get ready for the SF Bazaar Bizarre on Dec 15th! I dont have a table, but you can stop by girl on the rocks for some of my creations including tweed chickens, tweed chicken buttons, and recycled wallets made from vinyl banners and tyvek envelopes. I'll be at the booth too helping out and sporting my new apron.

apollo gets in on the tweed chicken action too..

apron

I've been working on this little number for wearing while crafting and also for when I help Karrie at the Bazaare Bizarre on Dec 15th.

The apron features the infamous rainbow canvas which I love so dearly as well as twill tape ties and vintage polka dotted double fold bias tape. I have made multiple variations on this theme but I'm really in love with this one - the "miniskirt" version. In fact, I like it so much I have a hard time taking it off when I leave the house.....

Dressed for the Holidays

She is all dressed in her holiday best. Get this chicken some ice skates!

Beyond

We are back from the desert and beyond. It was beautiful and vast and very, very windy. The same wind collapsing (and blowing away) our tent was fueling fires in so cal. Check out this satellite image with smoke, dust AND Von Karman vorticies. More of our photos on flickr.


Apparently Ive been tagged by Jena at eloomnation. Ive never done one of these so I supposed Ill give it a go. There are also apparently rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 3 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

well then, here I go:

1. Im currently obsessed with tweed chickens.
2. I am a closeted (or maybe not so closeted) crazy cat lady. I have been hoarding the brushings from my cat apollo and plan to spin his fur into yarn and knit him a hat (or maybe sweater.)
   
3. I once had a pet duck. It met its demise at a young age at the beak of a hawk.
   
4. I have spent a lot of time sailing small boats. In high school it was every weekend, and in college it was 5 days a week. This is funny because I hate getting wet.
5. I have an immense collection of jackets. I love coats, sweaters, fuzzy things--you get the picture. Again this is funny because I have spent most of my life living in northern California where to most peoples observations it does not appear cold.
6. I can do a fairly accurate chicken impersonation. (these are turning out very poultry-related arent they...)
7. I cant think of a seventh interesting/quirky item right now, maybe someone can leave one in the comments?
   

And now to pass it on: Amber at Yarn Junkie, Carmen at Rosebrier and Cara at Craftin On the Couch. If being tagged makes you upset then ignore me!

there it is

The wedding quilt: "What a Bunch of Squares" pattern from Denyse Schmidt Quilts with a pieced back. It is machine quilted with unevenly spaced vertical lines and I added an embroidered patch with the names of the recipients and their wedding date. Most of the work was completed in the span of a month (actually, most of it the first week) - check out the progress in blogland and on flickr.

I really like it, and while its a big weight off my shoulders to have it done Im sad to give it away!

the EC

Or, more accurately, the ECCWGS (El Cerrito City Wide Garage Sale). I love the idea of a whole town organizing garage sales on the same day. It makes any particular junk-finding probability so much higher! This year's find? A crock pot. A fantastic shade of red-orange and free to boot!



the instructions were with in in the box -- dated 12/29/1973. There are some "exciting" recipes in the booklet made even more fantastic by the by-lines for the titles and the super cute little illustrated vegetables and meats. They are quite similar to the box of recipe cards we found last year but without the heart stopping photos.



The cat had to check it out also. He even had his head stuck down inside but I was too slow with the camera, so all you get is the feet.

spinning away

Im slowly getting better... This is one strand of domestic white top and one of something grey-- honestly I dont really know. Im just practicing with all the pieces of roving ive got in my bag. I have also been really enjoying spinning some merino roving dyed by Karrie.

This weekend I received a package in the mail (always exciting) with musk ox fiber my friends found in Alaska while doing field work. So exciting! Its got some plant material in it and smells like animal, but its much cleaner than you might expect to find. The cat is pretty interested in the smell and spent a good 10 min sniffing around after I opened the envelop. Im going to need to find myself some cards that can handle it.

I also have for you today an indication that we have made progress on the wedding quilt


and a furrier version


We have actually finished all of the sewing and just need to snip off the tails of thread hanging out and take some photos before we can deliver it. Winter is coming at some point (its even supposed to rain today) and they might need it!

rules for life

add this one to the list:

dont chase kittens on roofs. they have four legs and claws, you only have two feet and possibly slippery shoes.

thankfully, my dad is mostly ok and suffered only a broken arm and smashed face after falling 8 feet from the roof while trying to "rescue" his kitties (the cats subsequently spent the entire night on the roof and loved it). the injuries could have been *much* worse but let this serve as a lesson to everyone else--dont do it!

the felines in question

babies and such

More baby blankets for more babies... They are everywhere!

I wish I could find a better resource for cute flannel prints. Joanns is always disappointing and my local fabric store often does not have the prints I like. Does anyone have a good suggestion for buying flannel prints online?

In other non-crafty news, N played a show with some folks on Saturday at Mamma Buzz cafe in Oakland. It was the first non-dead hensons show of his I've been to in many years. Maybe there will be more in the future?



Ive also been out enjoying the remnants of summer (oh, who am I kidding, it could go on like this for weeks). I went out to Point Reyes for a day of hiking and being near the ocean. There is just something special about waterfalls at the beach.




more craftiness to come soon...

fall comes early

It was strangely autumn-like last week despite still being September (in my world fall starts the last week in October and turns to winter around the second week in November). I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of actual proper rain. It was a strange feeling which triggered in me a desire to put on sweaters and wool socks and maybe even a Halloween costume. (the weather didnt last long, it was back up to the 70s again today) All the wintry feel got me in the mood for indoor activities, at least for a few days.



I finished machine quilting and sewing binding to the top of the wedding quilt a few weeks ago. Now we are almost done hand sewing the binding to the back. There has been a distinct lack of photos while Ive been working on it as the hours between 9 and midnight dont have very good lighting (funny how that works)





Ive been spinning again (a little). I picked up some wool after abandoning the silk hankie I had been working on and remembered why I thought spinning was fun.




The mead experiment is going well. My dad added a water trap to the bottle to prevent explosions and we tasted our concoction this weekend. I was very skeptical but it was really, truly, not bad. Im excited to see how it turns out in the end.

And speaking of bees, N and I joined my dad for a look inside the hive using his "bee suits" which are really painters coveralls with mosquito head nets and gloves.


The figs and pears at my parents house are out of control this year.

I recommend baking them and serving over ice cream. mmmm

The kittens are out of control too...

Streak has reached a whopping 4lbs and is twice the size of his sister who is just starting to recover from a really terrible cold. He hardly fits in the scale anymore!

The scenery is always nice up there, but notice the dark color in those clouds. Definitely not a summer look.


Its not a bad view from our apartment either, the cat always seems to find something to stare at


And sometimes I do too.

Diagonal Weave on a Weave-it

I like tweed a lot. My whole motivation for getting a weave-it loom was so I could make tweed. The instructions for twill (diagonal weave) provided with the weave-it loom are a bit confusing and I imagine they deter many people from trying it out. That, and the regular woven squares are really cute too!

For more info on Weave-it looms and what you can do with them check out Eloomnation and the "week" of weaving over at Girlontherocks.

This is a my attempt at shedding some light on the process and hopefully clarifying the instructions for how to make your very own "diagonal weave" square. I made a full set of photo-instructions on flickr complete with notes. Below I have my general rules and tips. I should point out that my definitions of tweed, twill, diagonal-weave, stitch, and strand may not be strictly accurate but hopefully they are logical.



To make a diagonal weave square you will need:
weave-it loom (I think all the sizes will work but Ive only done 2" and 4")
weaving needle
two colors of yarn
instructions
tweed chicken for company (not strictly necessary)

You will wind the white yarn around the loom (diagrams 1 & 2) and then weave in the black yarn with the weaving needle (diagram 3). Full photoset with instructions on flickr.

Diagonal weave (as the Weave-It loom instructions call it), or twill, is made by going over and under two strands and offsetting the stitch by one strand each row. This is the basic pattern you will follow, and it helps me to keep that in mind when Im trying to remember what to do next.

The weave-it diagrams for diagonal weave (courtesy of Karrie). Also a very useful chart. Click through to flickr for a few clarifying notes.






Tricks and Tips for diagonal weave

• The very first row is different than all the others in two ways.
  
  1. Row 1 is a 1-1 row, meaning that it is woven under one-over one all the way across (starts with under). All other rows are 2-2 rows (over two-under two) with some exceptions in the edge stitches.
     
  2. The yarn at the end of the first row should go to the outside of the corner pin (see this photo and diagram)
     
• Rule 1: The black yarn should always overlap one stitch with the previous row and advance in the correct direction. This should help you decide whether to start the row with an over or under.
• If you are weaving standard twill (not changing directions) the rows originating on the right-hand side will always begin 2-2 while rows originating on the left-hand side will begin 1-1. They both continue across with 2-2.
• Rule 2: The black yarn should always go around the white yarn on the edge stitches. This means that if you end by going under the last strand you need to go over it at the beginning of the next row. This will also help you catch mistakes when you start the next row. If you make a mistake you will not be able to both begin the row correctly and follow rule 2. When doing herringbone tweed you will have to be extra diligent to make the edge stitches are "captured".
• Mistakes arent hard to fix, just weave backwards with your needle to the location of the mistake.
• The last row can be very tight and difficult. Try doing it in sections so you can get more leverage on the needle.
  

Herringbone tweed is made with this same advancing stitch pattern but with directional changes. This poses a few additional complications. At the apex of the direction change there is a full two stitch offset (as opposed to the normal one stitch offset). I do one direction change in the example, but I like to do them every 5-6 rows for a more typical tweed look.

• At the apex of the direction change offset weave the opposite pattern from the previous row. This will be a full two stitch offset.
• Rows originating on the right-hand side will begin 1-2
• Rows originating on the left take some more planning to satisfy both rules 1 and 2. I suggest ENDING the previous row with 1-1. This can be accomplished by backstitching one (see photo). If you do this left rows begins with 1-2. Otherwise you will have to begin 1-1-1 which I feel is invasive to the pattern.
  

The finished square on the loom:


and off:



Please let me know if you have any questions about my explanations, the photo-tutorial, or diagonal weave in general. Ill do my best to answer them!